1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a peripheral component interconnect (PCI) bus test system and method therefor, and in particular to a PCI bus test system and method of implementing the same by making use of signal waveforms.
2. Related Art
Presently, the conventional method of testing a PCI bus is realized through testing hardware by its software. For example, in such a test, a PCI test card is used, such that the operation of the test card is controlled through the execution of an upper-level software, hereby achieving the detection of PCI bus through the feedback of the test results. In this situation, the test is achieved essentially through testing the hardware aspects by its software aspects. As such, the test conducted in this manner is insufficient. Since the data transmission of computer system is realized through the digital signals, thus, in this way, as long as data can be transmitted accurately and correctly, then it is determined that the hardware is exist without any problem.
In practice, some defects may actually exist in the hardware. The reason that they have not been detected is only because the severity of these defects has not yet reached the critical threshold level. However, in some severe environment, such as high temperature, strong electric-magnetic interference (EMI) etc, these defects may surface and turn into real hardware problems. Therefore, in the prior art, a kind of test scheme is proposed, and that is realized through measuring and analyzing the signal waveforms generated by the hardware device, thus detecting the potential problems exist in the hardware. In the case of testing PCI bus, usually, the signal waveforms on the pins of PCI bus are measured and observed by means of an oscilloscope, and the waveforms are analyzed through the output of the oscilloscope to determine the signal quality of the PCU bus. However, due to the complexity of the PCI bus protocol, the data transfer of PCI bus will undergo a series of operations such as: initialization, hand-shake, and data transmission. Therefore, in general, on the screen of an oscilloscope, only large number of rapidly varying waveforms can be observed, and that are utilized to interpret the quality and the performance of PCI bus. Thus, in this condition, the determination of the quality and performance of PCI bus operation is rather difficult.